Tua wins College Football Player of the Year by Sporting News...

     Full disclosure front and center right from the start. I love The Sporting News.  It started in 1886 in St. Louis, hard by the Mississippi and gateway to the West. My grandfather's favorite baseball team was the St. Louis Browns. So why am I waxing poetically about TSN? Here's why. Unlike the Downtown Athletic Club giving out ballots like drunken fools like Mardi Gras gives out beads, the TSNews takes its selections seriously. They are serious people who take their jobs seriously. There are now self-aggrandizing writers like the idiot who voted for a defensive lineman just to write an article about his "purity" of the vote.  TSNews pick Tua Tugovaila as College Football's Player of the Year. It was a just and deserving pick and here are some of the reasons why:

1. Tua had to play against the top defenses in the nation as a whole. The SEC is still the nation's premier league. Sorry, if that offends some of my Midwestern readers. It is just the truth and every other college football league knows it.
2.  The Big 12 is kinda like playing flag football. The defenses are an afterthought. I have no idea how that happened, but over the past few years, the league morphed into a fraternity flag type of a contest. For the older readers, they will tell you we played "two-hand touch." It frequently meant play tackle football without a helmet. This flag football stuff is for sissies. The only thing missing in the Big 12 is a keg on the sideline. Nothing like a good kegger to finish off a football weekend.  
3. The argument that some make about Oklahoma having to score each possession just to keep even or win is so funny it makes my sides hurt. I understand the defensive coordinators in the Big Twelve are given a suicide mission. All the great players seem to gravitate to the offense. But some of the best defenders in the Big 12 can catch a flag with one hand. 
4. If Tua had the luxury of playing in the fourth quarter his statistic would be unworldly. Add another quarter to his stats. He would have 46 TD passes. Yards passing would a red-hot 4200 yards. You get the idea, don't you? Here is one fun fact. Tua was only in on 54% of his team's offensive possessions  
5. Had Coach Saban allowed Tua to play in the fourth quarter no one would even be in a discussion about the best player in America.

      I think Tua deserved this award. He also deserved the Heisman. I wonder what the AD's office shared regarding information-wise on Stats. Look for Tua, if he is well, to crank up some Big 12 numbers later this month. If double T is healthy, the game with the Heisman Trophy winner is toast. I talked with two players who are on the defense. "You guys gonna help Tua in the Orange Bowl?" Yes Sir, we gonna let them know who is the big dog. I rest my case.